


eavesdropping.

by outpastthemoat



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Eavesdropping, I prayed to you Cas, M/M, Men of Letters Headquarters, prayers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-11
Updated: 2013-04-11
Packaged: 2017-12-08 05:10:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,265
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/757423
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/outpastthemoat/pseuds/outpastthemoat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam calls it positive reinforcement.  Dean still doesn’t know what to call it, even though it was all his own idea in the first place: he just hopes it works.</p>
            </blockquote>





	eavesdropping.

Sam calls it positive reinforcement.  Dean still doesn’t know what to call it, even though it was all his own idea in the first place: he just hopes it  _works._

 Dean feels  _something_ one morning.  

He's got his boots on the table, he's making idle conversation with Sam, still sorting through books in the library, when he becomes aware of the strangest sensation.

There's a prickling brush of electricity rising up his spine and tingling on the back of his neck, and he knows somehow that he’s got Cas’s attention, if only a vague loose thread of notice.  He can't tell, really, how he knows the sensation for what it is, but he does, and with a start he realizes that Cas is listening in to their conversation from someway far away.  

The feeling isn't anything like praying; Dean never can tell which, if any, prayers are getting through, or if it’s even Cas who’s hearing them.  No, this time he knows that Cas is listening: he’s got Cas’s ear right now, and his thoughts spin in a mad rush, trying to decide what to say.

He thinks about the prayers he’s sent Cas’s way, recently.   _Watch over Sam.  Watch over_  me.  _I could really use your help right now, you know.  Where are you, anyway?_   He tries to work these spoken-aloud prayers like small talk, a hollow one-sided conversation: impersonal, less invasive.  He’s not sure how well it’s worked as a tactic.  

Or, well, Dean supposes that he knows exactly how well it's worked.  It hasn't worked, not at all.

And there have been other prayers, too, not said aloud, but Dean’s not sure Cas could ever have heard those - he’s not even sure he wants Cas to hear those sentiments, those fleeting, desperate thoughts that flutter through his mind when he’s tracing the shapes of the weapons on his wall, waiting for sleep.  Waiting for  _something_.  

There’s a moment when Dean wants to shout loud enough to make the steel-framed walls topple down, wants to say something like  _Quit hiding from me and just_ be  _here, damn it,_ or even  _How dare you let me say those things to you, and then just leave me again like that?_ He wants to say sourly,  _Q_ _uit snooping, you secretive bastard_ , wants to remind Cas resentfully of just how great spying had worked out for him before, wants to drag Cas out from wherever's he's been hiding and give him a piece of his mind.

Dean thinks furiously towards that buzz of static,  _If you're gonna eavesdrop, buddy, you better get ready to hear what I_  really  _think about you_ , and he opens his mouth.

But out of nowhere comes the small nagging feeling that maybe listening to Dean list a verbal catalog of Cas's faults really isn't what Cas needs to hear right now.   Yeah, Cas is spying on him -  _s_ _pying_ again _, Cas,_ _really_? - but the light prickle of static on the back of his neck just feels ashamed and furtive and  _worried_ , more than anything else.  

It reminds Dean, unaccountably, of being four years old all over again, hiding under the bed with all the guilt and panic that comes with the words  _Just wait 'til your father gets home!_ And then, later, the sound of voices downstairs, and overhearing a curt description about himself, words that still sting.

 _Eavesdropping_ , Dean thinks again, and from the same place that the small nagging feeling had arrived from comes the thought that Cas has probably never overheard anything  _nice_  about himself before.  He's only overheard bad things about himself, Dean thinks, things like  _sketchy_ and  _untrustworthy_ and later,  _worthless, broken._

And Dean can't really explain  _why_ he says what he does, then, but he knows it has everything to do with feeling a sudden achy sympathy for Cas's position.  .

 “Sure wish Cas was here,” he says, too-sudden in the quiet of the library, and in the edge of his vision he sees Sam raise his head, slowly.  From far away, Dean can feel Cas’s vague awareness shift to something sharper, closer, and he feels simultaneously miserable and relieved.  

Sam leans back slowly in his chair, looking curiously at Dean, caught off-guard.  “Yeah?” he says slowly.  Non-committal agreement, but Dean thinks Cas won’t catch Sam’s dubious tone.  He hopes. 

“Yeah,” Dean says.   _Fuck,_ he thinks, wincing; he’s thinking consequences now, hoping frantically that Sam isn’t considering this conversation as an invitation to talk about  _feelings_.  

But Cas is still listening, Dean can tell, so he tries to make it good.  “Yeah," he mutters, and picks at the label of his beer.  "I miss him.  You know.”

“ _Really_ ,” Sam breathes out, sounding fascinated, leaning forward.  Dean’s the center of attention between Sam’s morbid curiosity and Cas’s eye-of-Sauron imitation and he feels like some sort of bacteria observed through a microscope.  “Why’s that, Dean?”

 _Damn it,_  Sam, Dean thinks,  _now I have to come up with_ _reasons_ _.  You couldn’t just make it easy, could you?_   But he can feel Cas pull away quickly, jerking back as though he’d touched a burning brand, and he’s desperate to keep Cas’s attention now.  Go big or go home.

"Why shouldn't I miss him?" Dean says tightly.  "He's my friend.  My best friend."  His jaw’s starting to hurt.  He hopes Cas only hears the words, not these tight-coiled feelings behind them.  “He’s a joy to have around,” he adds lamely, and Sam shoots him a suspicious look.  Dean thinks he’s starting to catch on, though he's not sure of what conclusions Sam's going to find here.  “Don’t you think so?”

But it seems to work: Dean can feel Cas seem to drift closer, considering.  “Yeah, sure,” Sam replies.  He shrugs.  “He’s good company, I guess.”

"If he was here-" Dean begins, and stops.  He wants to communicate somehow how he’s missed Cas, how much he feels Cas’s absence.  And maybe frustrated pleas for help isn’t the right way to go about showing Cas how much he’s missed.

"I just like it when he's around," Dean says, and the hairs on the back of his neck stand up.  Cas seems to consider this, and slowly begins to drift away.  This time Dean just lets him, and in the space between one moment and next, the feel of static fades away. Dean takes a deep breath.

Sam's eyebrows have discovered new heights.  “Are you _feeling_  all right, Dean?" he asks, and Dean doesn't miss the way he leans heavily on the  _feeling_.  

"I'm fine, Sam," he says irritably.  He doesn't want to talk about it just now, he's still gulping air, dizzy from the sensation of  _Cas_ at the back of his head and worried that Cas might drift back at any moment.

He does try to tell Sam about it, later, when he's sure Cas isn't listening in.

 "So  _that's_  what that conversation was about?” Sam asks, skeptical.

"Like I said, Sammy - he was there, listening in. I  _know_ it."

"And your response to Cas  _spying on us again -_ _spying_ _,_ Dean _-_ is to say,  _'I miss him_?'"  _  
_

Dean crosses his arms over his chest, feeling defensive.  "I thought," he mumbles to the ground, "I thought it might be good for him to hear something nice about himself, for a change."

"Huh," says Sam, and looks considering.  “Positive reinforcement.  That’s actually a really good idea, Dean.”  He cocks his eyebrow, like he’s not really sure whether or not he wants to come off as _impressed_  or  _condescending_.  

"Let me know," Sam says thoughtfully, "if you feel him come round again.  You know, I think this just might work." 

A few days later, Dean feels the static prickle again on the back of his neck, and goes off to find Sam.  He finds Sam in the kitchen, making a sandwich.  

"Cas makes good sandwiches," Dean says abruptly.  The static snaps alarmingly at the skin on his neck.  It feels like touching a live wire.  

Sam smirks at him.  "Oh yeah?" 

"Yeah," Dean says morosely.  "He made me a sandwich once.  I liked it."  He's doing this all wrong, he can tell.  He wonders if Cas doesn't like remembering about  _sandwiches._  

Or maybe it's just that  _You make good sandwiches_ isn't actually a good compliment.  Maybe it sounds far too much like  _Get over here and make me a sandwich, pronto._

"He's good at picking up stuff, too," Dean continues, desperately trying to salvage the situation.  "Ingredients for spells, you know?  I bet he'd be good at grocery shopping.  Like Lisa-"

Sam gives him a withering look.  The static slinks away miserably.  

"You're an ass," Sam says flatly, afterward.  "Dean, you have no idea how to give a compliment, do you?" he says, exasperated.  "You don’t even know how to _take_  a compliment!"

“That’s not true!” Dean snaps.  

“You’re really smart,’ Sam counters.

“Fuck off, Sammy,” he snarls.

“ _See_?”

Dean spends that night in agony and wakes up to find that sometime during the night he'd managed to wrestle his sheets to the floor.

Sam tries his best to counsel him about the art of compliments.  

“Don’t  _compare_  him, Dean - and  _definitely_  don't compare him to your ex-girlfriends-"

"I don't know  _why_ you think  _that's_ the problem," Dean grumbles in to his coffee cup.

Sam huffs, raises his hands.  Drops them to his side.  "Just-"  He looks at Dean, peculiarly.  "Just tell him all the things you like about him.  Tell him why you think he's great. Brag on him a little.  Be  _genuine_ , Dean."

He spends the rest of the day in a sort of daze, waiting for the inevitable tingle on the back of his neck, trying to work out just what's he's going to say this time.  It's not like he's _trying_  to sound flippant, it's just that he’s not sure how to say what he wants Cas to hear. 

That night he doesn't wait for feel of static on his skin. He closes his door, folds himself under the covers, arms tucked behind his head, and just starts talking.  

"There's this guy I know," he starts, quiet, and he feels the barest brush of Cas's attention, all on him.  "And he's just...one of the best men I've ever known."

He pauses, waiting for the static to gather, focus.  It's like feeling a thunderstorm building up; there's a current of electricity in the air.

“He's really nice, this guy,” he says, softer.  “He's just-” he thinks about it for a moment.  It’s important to get things right.  “He's  _kind_.  Even though he doesn't always get the chance to be.  And he's always trying to help.  Me, my brother, the world, everybody. That’s what I like about him the most, I think.  That he always does his best.

"He's brave," he continues.  "He always does what he thinks is the right thing to do."  Dean feels a quiet thrum along the underside of the static, and he thinks it might Cas’s pleasure at the words.  It’s nice.  He thinks of a cat purring, and grins.  "And he's funny.  I don't know how I ever thought he was missing a sense of humor. I like everything about him, pretty much.  I like that he wears his dumb tie backwards and that it looks like he never brushes his hair.  I like that he likes watching tv shows.  And I like to hear the sound of his voice.  I like it when he smiles.  He doesn't do that enough."

He's got all of Cas's attention, now.  It's a heavy thing, but it does feel good.  He's missed having all of Cas's attention.  "He makes me happy," he says finally.  He's tired, and his voice is cracking, and with the warm weight of Cas's consciousnesses wrapped around him he's about to fall asleep.  "Don't know what I'd do without him," he murmurs, eyes closed.  But Cas is still paying close attention.  "That's why I wish he was here right now."  

Cas seems to be thinking very hard about something.  He can feel Cas's attention slide off of Dean slowly, and as he drifts off, he can sleepily feel, somewhere far away, a sort of peacefulness he knows means that Cas has reached some sort of conclusion.

It's too late to take back anything, and normally that would send Dean in a frenzy of panic, of embarrassment, but he can't seem to work himself up to it.  He just  _waits_ ; it's the only thing he's really able to do right now, waiting to find out about that conclusion Cas had reached.  And, miracle of miracles, Cas shows up at the bunker two days later, looking shifty.  

He stands in the entry of the bunker, hands in his pockets.  He looks like a door-to-door Bible salesman. Dean tries very hard not to demand  _W_ _here’ve you been all this time, damn it?,_  because that's not the right way to start this kind of conversation.

Instead he clears his throat and croaks out, “Glad to see you, Cas.”

Cas looks at him searchingly.  “It’s good to see you, too, Dean,” he says finally, and shifts his feet, awkward.  He hesitates. 

"I've missed you," Cas says, and Dean can't help but grin to himself over this situation. 

He's embarrassed, Dean thinks.  Doesn't know how to let on that he's overheard me.  Well, that's what he gets for eavesdropping.

He might let Cas off the hook.  This time.

"Missed you, too," Dean says, and Cas looks up at him and  _smiles_. 

Well, he's not going to let Cas off the hook that easily.

"Heard any good prayers lately?" Dean asks.

 

 


End file.
